Peter Paul Rubens

The resurrected
Christ, his flesh marked by the wounds from the crucifixion, holds the cross,
arching back to counterbalance its weight. The shroud, a simple white cloth,
hangs around him. The painting does not show any specific incident from gospel
or legend, but rather offers Christ as an object for meditation. It is an
affective image, meant to elicit devotion, to make the faithful reflect on
Christ’s sacrifice and triumph. This is made all the more immediate because of
his physical presence, conveyed through the strong contrast of light and dark,
the compact, tightly framed image, and the sculptural treatment of form.

In the past this
painting has sometimes been identified with a missing Christ, documented
as part of a series of thirteen panels showing Christ and his apostles, painted
by Rubens in c. 16121 (the twelve Apostles are now in the Prado). The Ottawa Christ was
rediscovered in 1906 and exhibited as the missing work the following year in
London. The attribution was controversial, although it quickly found
influential support.2 Aware of the controversy, but trusting its advocates, the Gallery bought the
painting in 1929. This claim would continue to find supporters for several
decades, but scholars would later come to unanimously see it as a copy, one of
several known. In the Corpus Rubenianum, the standard catalogue of the
painter’s work, it was published as the best surviving example after the missing
original.3 Due to its apparent quality, the possibility of Rubens’ participation had some
credence, and the Gallery accepted it as by the master and his workshop.

Many copies and
variants of the Prado Apostles survive: only one set is certainly from
within the workshop, this is now in the collection of the Pallavicini, Rome.4 Others were likely made
outside the workshop, which attests to the series’ popularity. In addition,
there are several single panels of saints – unlikely to be part of any complete
set – which derive from the Prado series. The Roman Apostles include a
Christ that is closely related to the type seen in the Ottawa panel. It is
likely that the Prado Apostles had a similarly posed Christ.5

A good candidate
for the model for the Ottawa panel isa painting
now in Vienna (illus. 1)6 This panel is clearly superior in quality, and arguably autograph. The
relationship of the two works has never been closely explored, but the Ottawa
Christ appears to be a copy after it.

The Vienna work
shows Rubens’ characteristic means of painting flesh: the warm coloured
imprimatura is left visible as a mid-tone in places, or partially visible and
modifying the tone of an overlying scumble, for instance in the shadow cast on
his left bicep. The flesh is painted in layers – the warm and cool hued
underpainting then scumbled over with thin, tinted greys – to produce luminous,
translucent skin. In the final phase of painting, the artist added cool, light
touches, broadly painted, to highlight and animate the surface and strengthen
the anatomy, for example at the throat and collar bone. By contrast, the flesh
of the Ottawa Christ is painted directly, potentially in one session. It does
not rely on layering, but goes directly to the modelled form with mixed opaque
tints, and the highlighting is not a separate stage of painting. There is a
consequent diminishment of luminosity, and a shift in hue resulting from the
use of a mixed tint.

Given its
fidelity, it is clear that the painter of the Ottawa Christ had access
to the Vienna panel as he worked. It is also likely that the Ottawa painting
was begun before the other was finished: a pentiment in the Vienna panel finds
an echo in the Ottawa copy. The underpainting of the drapery in the Vienna Christ – broad, horizontal strokes made when the pattern of drapery folds was not
yet fully established – was initially followed in the Ottawa panel, before
being painted over. As noted, the flesh on the Vienna painting was complete –
including the retouching – before the copyist began that area. However, the
retouches that darken shadows on the drapery of the Vienna Christ were added as
final touches to the Ottawa copy. All this points to the Ottawa copy being made
simultaneously and as its model developed.

Scaled overlays of
the two paintings make it clear that the artist of the Ottawa panel did not
employ any of the usual means – such as tracing or griding – to ensure accuracy
(such methods would have been precluded if the model was still incomplete when the
copy was begun, as we argue: its paint, still wet, would have been easily
marked.). The Ottawa version would instead seem to have been copied by sight,
leading to subtle but significant discrepancies in scale and placement.
Aligning with this observation, its minimal underdrawing, done in a fluid
medium, is for the main, loose and freehand, searching for form. Only in areas
where greater precision was needed – the expressive hands and face – is the
underdrawing finer and more deliberate, possibly made in a dry medium; it was
followed carefully in the painting.

Making a copy
involves judgement – what to reproduce, how to do so – and reveals something of
the copyist’s visual acumen, and how he saw and interpreted his model. In this
instance, the more direct technique of the copy has necessarily made Christ
swarthier, with a more robust musculature. In places, the copyist followed the
original pedantically and unintelligently – particularly in trivial details.
For instance, the copyist felt obliged to reproduce even the small circular
marks which blemish the bark of the cross, but rendered them as simple, non-descriptive
dots, betraying Rubens’ painterly, yet naturalistic, vision. In another
instance, the copyist was required to adapt and invent to solve an unforeseen
problem. Late in the course of painting an extra fold of cloth was added to
Christ’s drapery over the already painted flesh of his thigh. Due to the taller
format of the Ottawa panel, more flesh was visible, and this must have been
perceived as unseemly. A layer of pale yellow was added, which was then
followed by strokes of cooler white lead. The intention was to mimic the effect
of the warm buff-coloured imprimatura seen through the thinly painted cloth, as
visible elsewhere in the drapery. The change will likely have been made with
Rubens’ consent.

While the paint of
this addition was still wet, someone drew into it using the butt-end of the
brush. It is difficult to fully understand the intention in making such a mark,
which seems unmotivated. It has sometimes been interpreted as a kind of paraph
or identifying mark, which seems improbable; it has no obvious explanation.

Although the
Ottawa panel is a copy, it is impossible to avoid acknowledging that the two
paintings would have looked very different – a result of the differing panel
dimensions, deviations in the drawing, as well as tonal differences –
primarily due to different techniques of painting. It would have been possible
to create a much more faithful copy, and these variations may have been
welcomed. They must have had Rubens’ approval, even if only tacit. In effect,
the Ottawa painting is not so much a replica as a secondary version, made by
the workshop. It translates, rather than replicates, the autograph model, and
introduces a minor variant.

The technical
evidence shows that the Vienna and Ottawa panels are closely connected in time,
yet look very different. This shows that significantly different means of
painting could be in use simultaneously by the workshop and its master, the
result being that dating by style alone is unreliable. Variations in handling,
technique and style may have been seen as less consequential than we may view
them today. They were an unavoidable by-product of the different hands
involved. Yet to viewer attuned to these differences – Rubens’ fellow painters,
for instance, or a sophisticated collector – they reinforced the hierarchy
between autograph and workshop. The case here is unusually clear. In the case
of other variants, the assistant painter would more closely emulate Rubens’
method of working.

The Vienna panel,
as a direct model for the Ottawa painting, and clearly influential for that in
Rome, is a potential candidate for the missing Christ from the Prado series.
According to dendrochronology, the panel for the Ottawa Christ was
available for painting by c. 1610.7 The Vienna painting can be
dated to roughly c. 1611–15 by its style and the Prado series is thought to
date to c. 1612. The Vienna panel nearly matches the dimensions of the Prado panels
(107 × 82 cm vs. 108 × 84 cm), and is of an appropriately high
quality, given its role as a centrepiece for the set.

Whatever the case,
there is a connection between the production of the Ottawa Christ, the Prado
series, and the set of variants in Rome. At the very least, they are all the
product of a shared climate in which the workshop was tasked with copying
models in demand, the results sometimes showing a remarkable degree of fidelity,
yet, in others, adaptations and deliberate changes.

Physical History and Technical Notes

The support for
the painting is composed of three oak boards, the grain running vertically;
butt-joined and doweled. The oak is from the Netherlands or western Germany,
and is slightly off radial cut (between 12 and 20 degrees). The boards measure,
from left to right at the bottom edge: 27, 26.5, and 29 cm; neither join is
parallel with the edges of the painting, or with each other. The original panel
has been unevenly thinned and is presently around 7 mm thick at the maximum. This
likely happened in 1929, when the support was put onto a wooden core and
cradled by H.E. Thompson of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Rooses 1910, p. 284,
saw the work when with L.L. Maillard (1845–1914), a restorer in Antwerp, but no
documentation survives.). The painting was put into a micro-climate box after
its 1929 treatment, but flaking was noted in 1947. The picture was cleaned and
restored in 1996, when at least two varnishes were removed; at this time a new
micro-climate box was constructed for it.

2It was exhibited at the Royal Academy winter exhibition in 1907 and
caused some controversy in the press. Claude Phillips wrote in The Daily
Telegraph (London), Wednesday 23 January, that the owner considered it
autograph, and the missing Christ from the Prado series. As part of an
attack on the Royal Academy’s uncritical acceptance of lenders’ attributions,
Phillips claimed it was a workshop or school piece. The owner seems to have
then enlisted Wilhelm Bode to support his claims. Phillips capitulated,
publishing Bode’s letters in the Telegraph, 18 March 1907. Tatlock 1927,
facing renewed doubts as to its status, championed the work, citing Bode’s
authority. The Gallery bought it on the advice of Charles Ricketts, its London
advisor.

5 The situation is complicated by the existence of two different
types of Christ recorded in copies and variants of the Prado Apostles, one of
which is seen here and another in which Christ holds the cross before him.
Regardless of their priority, Rubens chose the type depicted in the Ottawa
painting when he had the Apostles series reproduced in print some time before
1619; the prints follow the Rome set.

6 See Vienna 1930, no. 5 and Czernin 2009, p. 66. It was in the Imperial collections in Vienna by
1720, recorded in one of the inventories of
Ferdinand Storffer (compiled 1720–33). Vlieghe 1972, no. 6, copy no. 2.

7 The youngest heartwood ring dates to 1591; assuming a median of 17
sapwood rings were removed during the preparation of the wood, and that it was
seasoned for two years, the panel was available for use from 1610 upwards. Our
thanks to Peter Klein for the dendrochronology.

The National Gallery of Canada

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